held by Eastern Cape Department of Health
29 June 2006
Programme Director
MEC Jajula and other MECs present
Members of the Provincial Legislature
Mayors and Councillors
Officials from the national and provincial departments and local
government
Members of hospitals boards and clinic committees
Representatives of NGOs and CBOs, organised labour as well as the private
sector
Ladies and gentlemen
Good morning,
MEC Jajula, many thanks for the warm welcome and introduction and for the
invitation to me to address this very important meeting today. It is indeed an
honour for me to address you all on the priorities of the national health
system as well as the importance of partnership to assist our collective
efforts to achieve common goals.
These common goals must be the improvement of the health of our people
through improving the health services that we deliver as well as the health
status of people through our intersectoral efforts at all levels of government
and in partnership with key stakeholders.
I am delighted that the theme of this Indibano is "Building quality health
care in the Eastern Cape province." It is indeed critical that we continue to
improve the quality of the services that we deliver. However, I think that it
is important that we remind ourselves that we are not starting this project, of
building quality healthcare, today. This project commenced in 1994.
You will recall that part of the process o f building quality healthcare
included: (1) the integration of the homeland system as well as the former
White, Coloured and Indian departments of health into single health department;
(2) the eradication of apartheid services and practices and (3) the investment
of additional resources into areas that were previously disadvantaged. I think
that we need to remind our selves from time to time about our history as this
form the backdrop of any analysis that we do to see how far we have travelled
since the dark days of apartheid.
Programme Director, permit me to turn now to the priorities that we selected
for the five year term of office of this government, which commenced in 2004.
These priorities were selected on the basis of the review of the first five
years post 1994 and are intended to build on the achievements of that period
and to focus on the challenges that remained.
The national vision and mission for the period 2004-2009 are:
Vision: An accessible, caring and high quality health system
Mission: To improve health status through prevention and promotion of
healthy lifestyles and to consistently improve the health care delivery system
by focusing on access, equity, efficiency, quality and sustainability.
And the 10 priorities are:
1. Improve governance and management of the National Health Service (NHS)
2. Promote healthy lifestyles
3. Contribute towards human dignity by improving quality of care
4. Improve management of communicable diseases and non-communicable
illnesses
5. Strengthen primary health care, EMS and hospital service delivery
System
6. Strenghten support services
7. Human resource planning, development and management
8. Planning, budgeting and monitoring and evaluation
9. Prepare and implement legislation
10. Strengthen international relations
In line with these priorities, in January this year, the Members of the
Executive Council (MECs), representatives of South African Local Government
Association (SALGA) and I decided to review our achievements of 2005 and agreed
on the following priorities for 2006. These priorities are related to the 10
priorities that I listed but are an attempt to lift out a few critical things
that we must do to achieve the priorities that we set ourselves in 2004.So they
may be termed super-priorities!
These are:
1. the need for service transformation plans in each province that would
review the shape and size of the health system so that we can improve access,
equity, quality and efficiency
2. strengthening human resources for health, in terms of recruitment,
retention, training and all those things that we must do to ensure that we have
sufficient numbers of health professionals, in the right mix working
productively and providing superior quality of care
3. strengthening physical infrastructure - both hospitals and primarily health
care facilities, including the provision of accommodation to health
professionals especially in rural areas
4. further improving quality of care, including the implementation of hospital
improvement plans (which we introduced in January this year)
5. strengthening priority health programmes - here we selected three programmes
for special attention and these are: (a) healthy lifestyles, including the
importance of social mobilisation;(b) the implementation of a TB Crisis
Management Plan which we launched on 24 March this year; and (c) an accelerated
HIV prevention strategy, in line with a resolution we took as African Health
Ministers at World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa
(WHO/AFRO).
What is clear about these priorities is that the Department of Health cannot
have all the answers or achieve its goals on its own. Partnerships are critical
to our ability to achieve the improvements in the health system that we
seek.
We have created a legal framework in the National Health Act to guide the
engagement between government and its partners. In addition, I initiated the
Health Charter process which is nearing finalisation and which will provide the
basis for public-private partnership.
With respect to the structures in the National Health Act that can
strengthen partnerships to improve health care, the following should be
highlighted:
1. At the national level we provided for the establishment of a National
Consultative Health Forum. We hosted the inaugural meeting of the Forum in May
this year. The role of this forum is to advise government o n the challenges
and opportunities to improve health services.
2. This forum is replicated at provincial level.
3. At facility level we provide for both hospital boards and clinic
committees.
It is imperative therefore that these structures are used formally by all of
us to strengthen our partnerships.
In addition, government works with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and
community-based organisation (CBOs) on a daily basis. Government either
directly or in-directly through the use of donor funds, provide resources to
community based organization to provide services to communities. Thus hundreds
of partnerships exist at this level.
Issued by: Department of Health, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
28 June 2006
Source: Department of Health, Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.ecdoh.gov.za)
